


Couplet

by Azzandra



Series: Tripartite [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: I hadn't planned on writing this but you know what just have it, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-12-17 02:01:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: Following their marriage, Hubert and Byleth shared everything. Including their respective infatuations with Ferdinand.(Companion story toTripartite)





	1. In The Beginning

Hubert arrived late in the evening to the quarters he shared with his wife, late enough that he came upon the signs that she had gotten there much earlier than him. He found her coat draped on the backrest of a chair, and her decorative sword--the one she was allowed to carry even in the Emperor's presence, as a sign of the profound trust granted to her--had been laid out on her vanity desk. Hubert found himself smiling at the sight, something self-satisfied inside him feeding on Edelgard's trust in his wife.

He could have traced Byleth's path by the string of clothing she'd discarded as she undressed for the night, but he did not have to; the door of the bathroom was left half-open, like an invitation. The sounds of the faucet running and the warm light revealed her location all too well.

Hubert unburdened himself of the fripperies of office as well--the cape, the heavy coat, the boots. He took more meticulous care in how he treated his things than Byleth did, though he grew more careless in unbuttoning his shirt as he approached the bathroom door. 

He kept his footfalls light, the way he would back in their Academy days, as he stalked her across the Monastery grounds trying to catch her off-guard. Back then, he had never truly managed to catch her by surprise, but perhaps her guard would be down now, he thought.

And then whatever humor Hubert felt shriveled in his throat as he slipped past the open door and into the bathroom. Byleth was there, standing in front of the mirror, light reflecting off a dagger's blade--

"What are you doing?" Hubert asked, keeping his voice steady.

He'd expected her to flinch, react some way, but she was evidently not startled in the least by his appearance; he had still not managed to sneak up on her.

No, instead, she stood there frowning at her own image in the wall-mounted mirror, with the dagger held up in front of her experimentally.

"I think," she said slowly, deliberately, "my hair is getting too long." Then she moved her head from one side to the other, watching the sway of her dark locks with the motion. She adjusted the grip on her dagger as though getting ready to hack off hair right then and there.

Hubert felt the fear leave his body in a long sigh. He had--for an instant--been possessed by a terrible vision, born of all the poison he had heard dripping from courtiers' lips since his wedding: the pitying comments that anyone should be forced to marry him, even on the Emperor's orders. He had had, for a moment, visions of blood on the bathroom floor.

It was madness to think that Byleth was the kind of person to turn a blade on herself to get out of any situation. Even madder, when Hubert knew all too well that she had married him by choice. 

He huffed, uncertain if he was annoyed at Byleth or himself. He padded up to her regardless, stopping at her shoulder and looking into the mirror to find her eyes.

"We do have scissors, my dear," he said dryly.

"Oh!" She looked at the dagger, as if only now noticing it. It was the one she usually had hidden on her person; a less obvious weapon than the decorative sword. A nasty surprise for any assassin who might think removing one weapon would disarm her. And no less of a sign of trust on Edelgard's behalf. "It was close at hand, is all."

Hubert made a hum of acknowledgment as she slid the dagger back into its sheath, but then once she did, he plucked it out of her hand and placed it on the counter, sliding it as far away as he could without revealing his current unease with the object.

That she would think a dagger was a useful tool for cutting hair tragically explained much about her appearance during the Academy days. While Hubert understood commoners had a different standard for personal conduct than the nobility had been forced to maintain, he still on occasion learned deeply disconcerting facts about Byleth's upbringing as a mercenary that made him wonder what half-feral creature he had chosen to make his bed with.

She scrunched her nose as she tugged on her fringe, the hair grown long enough that it fell into her eyes, but not so long that she could easily brush it to one side or another and have it stay.

"Do you like me with long hair?" she asked.

"You would look beautiful to me even bald," Hubert promised. 

"Hubert, that was a serious question," she said.

"That was a serious answer," he replied. His attempt at romantic declaration apparently fallen flat, he changed tactics.

He slid a hand to the back of her neck, under her loose mane of hair, and rubbed small circles with his thumb against the nape of her neck. Byleth had undressed in preparation for her bath, and wore only a bathrobe, but it had slid low enough on her shoulders that his hand found skin readily. The warm weight of her hair felt like the finest silk against the back of his hand, and he realized he would regret it if she actually went and chopped it all off. With a dagger! Honestly.

"Though," he said, "if you want anything done to your hair, please seek out the advice of an actual hairdresser."

She laughed, the sound low and coming from somewhere deep in her chest.

"Such lack of faith, Hubert," she chided with a grin. Then, after considering her reflection for a second more, she gathered up her hair in a sloppy pile at the back of her head. "Should I just start wearing it up?"

Hubert recalled the last time he'd seen her with her hair pinned up, at their wedding. The slope of her neck exposed, the way it filled him with the urge to kiss her all the way from her jaw to her collarbone.

"Yes," he answered, with more heat than he intended. 

Her grin turned sly as she picked up on it. She let her hair drop down her back once again, in soft dark tangles. Hubert would have liked to card his fingers through it, appreciate the softness and shine of it properly before she did anything to it, but she twisted out of his grasp and rounded on him bodily.

He found himself pushed against the bathroom counter, the edge of it digging into the small of his back. Byleth pressed the full length of her body against his, and bracketed him between her arms as she placed her palms flat on the countertop behind him. She leaned into him, and he leaned back, hands scrabbling to support his weight against the counter, but despite the mild discomfort of the position, a heat suffused his body.

She was shorter than him, but built more solidly, and still in far superior physical shape. Pinned between her body and the counter, Hubert felt--not helpless, precisely. He still had his magic, his own hidden weapons, and an unshakable conviction that she would not visit any harm upon him. But there was a sort of gratifying vulnerability to this position that stoked a fire inside him, and it was a feeling he did not want to analyze too deeply for fear that it would dissolve under too much scrutiny.

"You know," she said, a smile curling at the corner of her mouth as she considered his chest--his unbuttoned shirt revealed a stretch of naked skin as it fell open to half down his chest. "I think..." 

She seemed to lose her train of thought as she placed a gentle kiss just above his heart, lips lingering against his skin just long enough for Hubert to feel the heat of her breath.

"Maybe I should leave my hair long," she finally concluded, tearing her eyes away from his exposed chest so she could hold his gaze, "just for you."

"Oh?" He felt himself grinning in response. There was something appealing about the notion, that she would reserve this privilege just for him.

"Though I suppose I'll never look as dramatic as Ferdinand does, when he rides in like that," she sighed.

The mention of Ferdinand dropped to Hubert's belly like a hot coal, and ignited through his veins like an oilslick catching fire. He had to look at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the image Byleth was referencing--Ferdinand coming back from his ride earlier that day, with his hair fluttering in the wind like a banner. By coincidence, they'd been in the courtyard, and Ferdinand had beamed at them from atop his horse like some benevolent figure of myth gilded by sunlight, before trotting onwards to the stables.

Hubert took in a ragged breath as he flailed for the appropriate reaction. Jealousy, it had to be jealousy, though the way their bodies were pressed flush together, it was impossible that she hadn't felt the twitch in his loins against her belly. If he looked at her, he was sure her gaze would be knowing. Accusatory. That was appropriate. One of them had to be jealous in this kind of situation.

"I hadn't noticed you were looking," Hubert remarked, keeping his voice neutral.

"I'm not surprised, with how busy you were staring," Byleth replied.

He dared sneak a glance at her, but she was not accusatory in either her posture or tone. If anything, there was something giddy about her, inasmuch as she was capable of expressing giddiness. She planted another kiss on his chest, while maintaining eye contact.

"Your bathtub is nearly full," Hubert pointed out. He was deflecting, and she knew it, but she didn't persist.

"Care to join me?" she offered.

Oh yes. Most definitely. When she drew back and dropped her bathrobe, Hubert began discarding his remaining clothes as carelessly as she had.

* * *

Later, as they lied in bed together, Hubert found himself assailed with thoughts he could no longer outrun. He idly played with a lock of his wife's hair, winding it around the fingers. It was damp, because despite the fact that she had tied it up to keep it dry, their activities in the bathtub had been... more spirited than washing entailed.

Bone-weary as he felt, still Hubert could not make himself fall asleep. The fact of the matter was, for the first year of their marriage, Ferdinand von Aegir had been a subject neither of them dared to broach. Not out of any mutual agreement, or at least not one spoken out loud, but their early forays into marital life had been fraught. Neither entirely sure of how one was meant to be married, they had worked at figuring out the ways in which their lives entangled slowly and uncertainly. And Ferdinand's very existence had felt like a loaded subject, and so one they instinctively avoided.

But disentangling from Ferdinand entirely? This was not something either he or Byleth managed. They might have more easily shunned the sun from their lives than Ferdinand.

If there was any distance now, it was out of Ferdinand's initiative. He had politely pulled back as though sensing his friends' marriage was a delicate flower attempting to grow in harsh soil, and had maintained a perfectly polite front from a distance.

But tea with Ferdinand had been one of the fixtures of his routine which had helped Hubert maintain his sanity during the war, and the fact that he could no longer entice Ferdinand to simply sit down and drink with him anymore had become a point of frustration for him. True, that they were both busy men, yet they had been no less busy during the war.

Hubert inched closer to Byleth, moving slowly as to not wake her, yet it seemed she must have sensed his radiating discontent. Her hand found his cheek in the dark, fingers tracing the side of his face as though trying to recreate the shape of it without vision.

They had gotten into the habit of having their most earnest conversations at night, when they were both in bed and sleep was eluding them. When tired, they were more open. In darkness, they were braver. When there were subjects on which they could not meet each other's eyes--whether out of shame, or fear, or too much pride--these late night conversations had helped them muddle through regardless.

"Did I upset you?" she asked, something sad and pensive in her voice. "When I brought up Ferdinand?"

"You didn't upset me," Hubert said, and meant it. If anything, he wondered if he had upset Byleth instead. 

He knew little enough about women, but he had watched and listened carefully enough at court to have been witness to numerous little jabs and tantrums between couples, when one had a wandering eye and the other a jealous inclination. The sharp retorts, the veiled accusations. 

It was not something that Hubert pictured his own wife doing, but even so far into their marriage, he was not yet confident enough in his standing as a husband to not constantly find some fault in himself, whether real or imagined. He was still afraid that she would slip between his fingers somehow, and it would be his fault.

"But you do find him attractive," she said.

Hubert cleared his throat to delay answering that. If he stopped talking, she would drop the subject; it was an unspoken rule of their nighttime conversations. There was always an out. But he found himself wanting to persevere through the awkwardness in this case.

"I was... infatuated with him. To an embarrassing degree," he confessed.

"Oh!" She didn't sound particularly surprised by this. Pleased, more like. 

Hubert bit on the inside of his cheek to keep his face from twisting into any expression that might have been too revealing; unnecessary in the darkness, since she couldn't see his face. He couldn't see hers, either. Fair was fair.

"He has that effect, doesn't he?" she added more softly. Amused.

He did have that effect, if Hubert was to be completely honest. But being completely honest might come at too high a price, so instead he shuffled closer so that he could put and arm around his wife, and gather her close to his chest. This. This was perfect. He did not need to mourn for paths he'd not pursued.

"So what happened?" she continued, muffled with her face hidden against Hubert's neck.

What had happened was Ferdinand von Aegir's big mouth, Hubert thought uncharitably. If there'd been a turning point in the way the configuration of their relationships had shaken out, then Hubert, with his keen mind and excellent recollection, could trace it back to a specific conversation.

It was almost towards the end of the war, the last time he and Ferdinand would have time for tea together, and Ferdinand spent the entire time rambling uncontrollably about the importance of finding a wife after the war and reclaiming normalcy by-- by tending to one's household, or some such nonsense.

Hubert had only been half-listening, because he spent the entire conversation feeling every word like a twist of the knife in his chest. Though at the time he hadn't been interested in analyzing why hearing Ferdinand speak of such things bothered him, now, with the benefit of time and distance, Hubert knew it was because he'd felt spurned. He had grown comfortable in the equilibrium of their relationship at the time, the ambiguity of it, the push and pull of tension left unresolved. And Ferdinand's description of life after the war put an end to that dynamic, unraveling it for the sake of some anonymous woman he planned to wed and beget himself an heir by.

But perhaps the more unintended result of the conversation was that, feeling himself wounded by Ferdinand as he was, Hubert still had the thought of marriage planted in his head. It was like a scab he picked at constantly, no matter that it would make the wound heal slower. He preferred the hurt, if that was the last thing he was ever going to get from Ferdinand.

And then-- then he discovered the hurt was not quite so bad when the Professor was around. She was a steadying presence, as quiet and immovable as a cliff by the sea withstood the battering of the storms. Rolling the thought of marriage in his head didn't feel quite as stinging to Hubert in her presence, and he found himself dwelling on the subject more and more seriously, until he found himself wondering about whether the Professor had any such plans after the war.

She had no home, without her mercenary company. No family to return her, with her father dead. She would always have a place at Edelgard's side, even after the war, but who would she have to fend for her in the disgusting morass of Empire politics? Hubert began to think, each day a bit more seriously, about how he might show his gratitude to the Professor. He began to imagine how he might offer his protection to her during peacetime the way she had always shielded him on the battlefield. He began to grasp a way in which he might dedicate his life to her, as well.

So the thought that formed, then, was grown from the idea Ferdinand had planted in the first place. And Hubert tended it in the dark until it grew into something he could express to Edelgard. Perhaps the entire notion would have withered in Hubert's head if Edelgard had not been as approving of it as she turned out to be, but she had been, and now Hubert felt beholden to at least making his proposal.

He had in fact been on his way to finding the Professor to so just that, when he crossed paths with Ferdinand.

'Hubert! You are looking intent!' Ferdinand had observed, bright and earnest as he looked Hubert up and down. 'Is something afoot?'

So Hubert told him. All but threw it in Ferdinand's face that he planned to find the Professor and ask her to marry him. Ferdinand had gaped at first, clearly astounded that Hubert was overtaking him in this department. 

And then, upon finding out that Hubert did not even have a ring with which to propose, Ferdinand had pressed one onto Hubert, insisting he would need it.

It hadn't even occurred to Hubert to wonder why Ferdinand was carrying a ring in his pocket. Proposing to Byleth had been a nervous blur, all his carefully prepared words melting away on his tongue and turning him blunt. It wasn't until he slid the ring onto her finger that he had a good look at it.

And later, as he and Byleth stood, hands clasped together and heads bent down to look at the rings on their fingers in wonder, Hubert was bowled over by an insight he had not expected to have that day.

Ferdinand had picked out this ring specifically for Byleth.

The gemstones caught the light in such a way that it reminded Hubert of the pale green Byleth's hair and eyes had been with the touch of the divine. Now, the colors had washed away, but Ferdinand--sentimental, cloyingly romantic Ferdinand--must have picked the ring with Byleth in mind long before the end of the war.

The idiotic rambling during their last teatime together came into sharp focus for Hubert; Ferdinand had been nervous and trying to build up to telling Hubert about his plans, and Hubert had been brusque and too concerned with his own wounded feelings to offer any reassurance. And Ferdinand had--regardless--still gone out and picked a ring with Byleth in mind.

And then Hubert had gone and cut him off at the pass, marrying her instead.

So, what happened? Ferdinand's big mouth had happened. 

But Hubert did not say so, and as the silence extended and he did not say a thing, they fell asleep before they could continue the conversation.

* * *

Life at court fit Hubert like an old glove, and it helped that Edelgard had purged so much of the Empire's dead weight when ascending to the throne. Being the Minister of the Imperial Household put him in the unique position of not only knowing everything that happened at court, but often-times being the one to influence events from behind the scenes. He knew what manner of creature lurked in every shadow of the palace, and they all knew him the way the crawling creatures of the woods knew the birds that would eat them.

And yet, introducing Byleth at court had proved to Hubert that there were still things he could learn about the people around him.

They had all been so shocked to hear of his marriage, and they hid it poorly. The first wave of gossip, in lieu of anything more concrete, concerned what manner of person might have been so brave to accept any proposal from him, or whether the Emperor had ordered this union.

Then they found out who his new wife was, and, bent on extracting some kind of lurid narrative out of this, they circulated her old title of 'Ashen Demon' with a titter; the great joke of the situation was that only a demon would marry Hubert.

In truth, Hubert found the entire thing in poor taste, and he was ready to squash the gossip-mongers who deigned to comment on his nuptials with such disrespect. Not for his own benefit, but because Byleth always reacted with discomfort at the mention of her old mercenary nickname. She tried not to show it, but Hubert could tell.

Yet, surprisingly, it was Ferdinand who took exception to circulating this name at court. He bristled and scolded, he shamed and finger-wagged each time it reached his ears, and Hubert had even once paused outside Ferdinand's office to hear him give a tongue-lashing to his staff about saying 'such spurious things' about 'a dedicated war-hero and dear friend of the Emperor' as _Byleth von Vestra_.

Hubert had had to breathe deeply in order to quell the flutter of his heart when he heard that name. Byleth von Vestra. He had never cared for his family name so much as in that moment, when he became aware that Byleth would bear that name for everyone to know who she had tied her fate to.

Which was not to say it was either Ferdinand's or Hubert's efforts which had stemmed any nasty speculation about Byleth, so much as her own presence did.

She was not accustomed to court, but she had always had a quiet way about her that exerted fascination. Years prior, this subtle force of personality had made her an effective Professor, even though new to the profession. There was something about her that made people want to please her, hold her attention, capture her heart. And the Imperial court may not have been as weak to it as impressionable young adults at the Officers' Academy, but they delighted in anything novel either way.

Where before they had been morbidly fascinated, now they were sincerely so, and Byleth, even with her knack for taking everything in stride, did not always find it easy to navigate.

One of the older fixtures at court was a Lord Dietrich, some middle-aged but canny nobleman of modest standing, whose one talent was keeping his head low enough not to get cut off, but his fingers in enough pies to make himself constantly present; constantly hovering at the margins of power with his grasping hands outstretched. Hubert found the man pathetic, but useful.

But Lord Dietrich managed to corner Byleth during one of her earlier forays at court, penning her in with small talk into a corner of the throne room, as the nobles milled around, waiting for the Emperor to arrive. Hubert could see Byleth's discomfort even from across the room, though perhaps nobody else would read anything other than boredom in the fixed stare she was giving to Lord Dietrich. Hubert paid attention to the stiffness on the lines of her body, and the way her hand laid on the hilt of her sword.

She could withstand the little man easily, but Hubert found himself weaving through the throne room's throng of nobles regardless, making his way with nods of greetings and quick brush-offs until her stood right before Lord Dietrich and Byleth.

Her eyes found him first, and von Dietrich's diatribe on silk prices trailed off as he noticed Hubert as well.

"Lord Dietrich," Hubert greeted shortly. Then his eyes shifted to Byleth, "Wife."

It was dry, as terms of endearment went. For the onlookers, it doubtless read as cold and possessive. But Hubert knew, by the flutter of Byleth's eyelids and the interested tilt of her head, that it was a form of address she liked, and he filed it away for future use. It had felt right in the moment, just to poke at Lord Dietrich and remind him of who he was talking to, but Hubert was not opposed to calling her that again for as long as it pleased her to hear it. It certainly pleased him to say it.

"If you'll excuse us," Hubert said, offering his arm to Byleth, "the Emperor will arrive shortly, and we must all attend her."

And like that, Byleth slipped alongside him, for all the image of the obedient wife. Hubert felt eyes bore into the back of his head, accusatory glares from all of Byleth's hungry admirers, envious that he was stealing her away from them. But he took no heed of them; Byleth's grasp on his arm was tight, and seeking reassurance in his presence. 

Before the next time this became necessary, Hubert would teach Byleth the art of brushing off unwanted attention as well. He would not have any of these people sink their hooks into her so easily, and the way she moved alongside him in a crowd made him believe she would have a talent for what he planned to teach her.

He found himself relishing the opportunity to find out.

* * *

For all the people Hubert would have preferred to avoid on any given day, there was still one he couldn't quite manage to pin down either.

Ferdinand von Aegir had somehow mastered the art of becoming elusive when no official business forced him to interact with Hubert, and it bothered Hubert how long it took him to notice.

They had been busy in the days following the war, to be sure. And Hubert... Hubert could admit, begrudgingly, that he had also been consumed with his new marriage, and happy to a degree that he was certain he shouldn't be permitted to feel. And Ferdinand himself had spent that first year consumed with reforming Aegir, and then with his responsibilities as Prime Minister.

But as the months trudged on and threatened to become years, what began stinging Hubert the worst was that Ferdinand was impossible to get alone anymore. Even passing the man through a hallway, and nodding greeting at him, was enough to make Ferdinand turn red and scurry off.

Always loathe to admit weakness, Hubert did not want to say that he missed the teatime interludes he often shared with Ferdinand during the war. He did not want to say he missed _Ferdinand_. He did not want to. It galled him to.

But he _did_ miss it, and the frustration writhed in his chest like a living thing.

Byleth was sitting in bed, reading by the light of a candle when Hubert strode into their bedroom that evening, and her eyes tracked Hubert's procession through the room as he stripped off his gloves and smacked the offending items down on her vanity desk. She continued watching as Hubert paced a tight circle between the wardrobe and the changing screen, and then, after punctuating this short walk with three sighs and an angry brush of the fingers through his hair, he did not even begin undressing for the night.

"Hubert," she said, and placed the bookmark carefully between the pages before putting the book on the nightstand. She then shuffled a bit further towards the center of the bed, and patted the edge where she had made enough space for him to sit.

Hubert sighed again, and did as indicated, sitting down on the edge, half-turned towards her and close enough that her hand could rest atop his.

"It's Ferdinand," he said, doing nothing to hide his annoyance. 

"Oh?" Byleth mouthed, her fingers lightly tracing caresses over Hubert's hand. His fingers had clenched in the bedsheets, but relaxed a fraction under her gentle touch.

"I tried to tempt him with his favorite tea, and he all but would have jumped out a window, if any had been available."

A snort of laughter came from Byleth, and Hubert's eyes cut to her, full of indignation.

"It's hardly amusing at this point," he muttered. He was visibly sullen.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's only that... I don't know, he always acts normal around you, so I assumed he only did these things around me."

"Normal around me?" Hubert's eyebrows went up at the notion, and then lowered again in a frown. "The man barely has a grip on himself unless _you're_ around. What are you talking about?"

Byleth gave Hubert a strange look in turn.

"I came to his office to ask a question, earlier this week," she said slowly. "And he acted so nervous I thought he was going to jump out of his skin. He spoke very loudly, and kept calling me Professor at the end of every sentence."

"Good grief," Hubert said, as he imagined the scene. "What did you even do?"

"I only asked him to call me by name!" Byleth said. "I think it may have been a mistake. When I did it a second time, he began calling me Countess Vestra, instead."

Hubert lapsed into silence, confused and trying to pick at the thread of logic running through this behavior. Byleth went quiet as well, and in parallel, Hubert could sense her trying to reason through the same thing. They must both have been looking back to their interactions with Ferdinand, trying to piece together the clues to whatever was going on, and though they did not yet arrive to a conclusion, they did both hit upon an avenue for investigation. There was decidedly a pattern to his oddities, now that Hubert was looking for it.

"He is terribly nervous when he is alone with only _one_ of us," Hubert remarked faintly, waiting to see if his wife had reached the same conclusion. "What is he thinking?"

She frowned as she stared at a point over Hubert's shoulder, and nodded in agreement.

"I don't know," Byleth confessed, "but don't you want to find out?"


	2. Chapter 2

Hubert knew very well that Ferdinand was not a shy creature, to shrink away and scurry out of the path of others. Which was perhaps what made it all the more maddening when it seemed that Ferdinand had learned the virtues of tactical retreat only after the war had ended.

But no matter, a good tactician used all his assets, and in this endeavor, he could always rely on Byleth for a perfectly-executed flanking maneuver. If, after the budget meeting, Ferdinand rushed to escape any risk of small-talk with Hubert, then Ferdinand certainly hadn't been counting on running directly into Byleth, waiting just outside.

"Professor!" Hubert heard Ferdinand squeak in surprise. "Are you here to meet Hubert?"

Through the open double doors, even as the other members of staff were filing out, Hubert could catch glimpses of Ferdinand's back, ramrod straight, and the curtain of his hair swaying with every twitch and movement of his head.

Hubert lingered for a few seconds more, feigning deep concern with getting his notes in order and slipping his papers into his leather folder, before he finally took mercy on Ferdinand and sauntered towards the exit himself.

Byleth had expertly fenced Ferdinand in with a combination of social obligation and appeal to his chivalrous nature, as she pretended to use him as a shield against being approached by any other courtiers. Ferdinand could not very well run off and leave her in their clutches, and so he stood in place and at the calculated appropriate distance.

"Ah, there you are," Hubert greeted ambiguously, and Ferdinand threw him an almost exasperated look.

"Hubert, you should not leave your wife to wait on you so!" Ferdinand scolded.

Hubert said nothing, but maintained eye contact quite with Ferdinand as he raised his hand to offer to Byleth.

"My apologies," Hubert said, and though it might have appeared addressed to Byleth, he was still looking at Ferdinand.

Byleth, though not ordinarily any more inclined towards public displays than Hubert was, put her hand into his and nodded solemnly, as though accepting the apology. Ferdinand managed to turn some interesting shades, and he averted his eyes. Hubert curtailed any outward reaction; while his own aversion towards showing his affections publicly was personal, Ferdinand was simply inured into the nobility's prudish norms.

"I was just telling Ferdinand," Byleth said, "that we were going to have tea together, since I wanted to try a new blend I received. But since you prefer coffee, I would like to have another discerning palate to enjoy the tea with."

"Ah, I see," Hubert said, as though he was just now learning of this fancy of Byleth's, when in fact he had been the very one to pick out the tea blend for her. "Ferdinand could surely offer his second opinion in the matter," Hubert continued.

They both looked to Ferdinand, whose gaze was flitting between them rapidly. Despite this, he seemed less apprehensive than moments before.

"If you have the time," Byleth offered, "we would be delighted to have you for tea."

Ferdinand straightened up, a light in his eyes.

"Oh. With the both of you?" he asked.

"Certainly with the both of us," Hubert said.

"I would be honored," Ferdinand blurted out as Hubert barely had time to finish the sentence. A delightful pink dusted Ferdinand's cheeks, and when he smiled, it seemed to outshine the sun.

Hubert composed himself, and additionally considered that the trap sprung might have been on himself as much as Ferdinand.

* * *

One tea date turned into two, turned into weekly, turned into nearly daily in creeping increments of frequency that Ferdinand left pass unremarked.

Hubert found himself simultaneously pleased one way and restless the other. He was delighted at having Ferdinand once again sitting across from him, and Byleth next to him, so much that it became the one thing he consistently looked forward to every day. They had much to catch up on, the three of them, and feeling out this new dynamic, the way their relationships settled into new and comforting patterns, kept Hubert in a strange state of excitement throughout.

Yet, Ferdinand still became elusive if it seemed he was to be left alone with only one of them. If Byleth delayed arriving at tea, Ferdinand would all but run out the door under the pretense of searching for her. When Byleth invited Ferdinand for a sparring session, as they had not had since the war's end, Hubert had wandered off to leave them alone, and discovered that Ferdinand had cut the spar short and run off. It was unbecoming of a Prime Minister to act like such a spooked deer, and yet.

"What does he think he's doing?" Hubert ground out in frustration one evening, completely out of context with any previous conversation he'd been having with Byleth.

And Byleth, in the process of rolling down her stockings as she changed for the night, picked up the thread of his thoughts quite easily.

"I think he's imagining we're chaperoning each other," she said.

Hubert's eyes narrowed as he looked at his wife. She eschewed a changing screen, so he was treated to the delightful sight of her removing her undergarments before she walked to the wardrobe bare-breasted to pick out a nightgown. She was enticingly unshackled by social mores at times, and Hubert might have mistaken it for simple naivete if not for these remarks she made at times, revealing she was all too aware of propriety and merely ignored it for her own benefit.

"As ever," Hubert sighed, "Ferdinand turns every social interaction into the most tedious enactment of rules of conduct possible."

Byleth's smile was swallowed up under the white fabric of the nightgown she pulled over her head. She needn't have bothered, because frustration had lit a fire in Hubert's veins, and he would have her out of the garment as soon as she was in bed with him.

"Perhaps," Byleth said, as she pulled back the covers and slipped into bed, "instead of trying to get him alone, we should just demonstrate that we make very poor chaperones."

Now Hubert was intrigued by this notion, and his excitement only compounded.

"Why don't you demonstrate what you mean, my dear?" he purred into her ear as his hand wandered down her body.

* * *

Their routine firmly established, Byleth and Hubert began testing out the shape of new boundaries. Since any appearance of impropriety tended to distress Ferdinand and make him retreat, they were less inclined to push him, but they discovered that simply beyond the pleasure of his company and his conversation, Ferdinand was simply delicious to tease.

There were small things at first: incidental touches of the hand as Hubert passed him a tea cup, a casual brush of the hand as Byleth pushed a lock of hair out of Ferdinand's face. Once, as they were leaving the room, they let Byleth pass through the door first, and then both moved to follow at once, stepping in each other's way and pulling up short chest to chest. Hubert had grabbed Ferdinand's upper arm and squeezed it as he apologized, and Ferdinand had been flustered by the gesture and completely beside himself as he insisted Hubert go first.

The touches became more deliberate after that. Not only how they touched Ferdinand at every opportunity, but how they touched each other as well. There was always something hungry in Ferdinand's face when he saw affections pass between them. Hubert would not have guessed Ferdinand had something of the voyeur in him, but perhaps it was all that repression.

"Do you suppose," Hubert asked his wife one evening, "that Ferdinand may not be entirely wrong to fear impropriety in our case?"

Byleth had snuffed out the lamp next to their bed before answering.

"Maybe," she responded. "Do you still love him?"

Hubert felt his words dry up in his mouth, and he couldn't have wrenched the words through his throat even if he wanted to.

But Byleth was apparently not asking this question for his sake.

"I still do," she added in a small voice.

Hubert reached for her in the dark, and pulled her tight against him. He nuzzled into her hair, wordless and yet desperate to have her know the depth of his affection.

"He has that effect, doesn't he," Hubert eventually said, with a shaky laugh.

Her fingers were clenched in the fabric of his sleeve, and he felt her small nod.

* * *

If Byleth were not as fiercely opposed to the thought of losing their marriage as Hubert was, he would have proposed to end their game with Ferdinand much sooner. But they were just as in tune with their fears as with their desires, and, knowing that she would not let go of him any more than he would cast her aside, Hubert felt emboldened. 

He may even have been flirting with the idea of escalating their little games with Ferdinand.

And then come the next winter, Ferdinand fell into a bout of terrible fevers. 

Seeing the wretched state he was in that first day, both Hubert and Byleth could see very clearly Ferdinand was coming down with something, and would probably try to overcome it through sheer noble poise. It was only that they thought it was a run of the mill cold, and not the burning sickness that truly took hold of Ferdinand. 

Hubert, in fact, was almost relieved when he dropped by the Prime Minister's office the day after Ferdinand started showing symptoms, and learned from his secretary that the Prime Minister was taking a day off. He and Byleth had planned to drop by Ferdinand's quarters in the evening, bringing soup and hot tea, and hopefully pleasant company as Ferdinand bemoaned his prescribed bed rest.

Except by evening, the dour-faced healers promptly turned away any visitors who were not qualified physicians, and a seed of unease was planted with the von Vestras.

This did not appear to be a mere cold.

And because Hubert was Minister of the Imperial Household, and responsible for how the court conducted business, it was the very next morning that a healer's report landed on his desk, describing the Prime Minister's serious illness and strongly suggesting he be relieved of his duties until such a time as he was able to take them up again.

Hubert felt a swoop of dizziness come over him as he absorbed the report. It was written in dry, clinical terms, but underneath Hubert could tell the healer writing it had genuine concern for their patient's state. Perhaps the estimate that it would take a month for this illness to run its course was an exaggeration, some generous rounding up that the healer had done because they expected Hubert to press for Ferdinand to return to his work sooner.

Yet, for all that Hubert was now desperately wishing for Ferdinand to be set right and back at his job again, he would not demand the man rise from his sickbed a moment sooner than was good for him. He signed off on the healer's recommendation, and passed on the news to the Emperor as well, that she would not be seeing her Prime Minister for a while yet.

* * *

Ferdinand's quarters smelled like stale sweat and sickness throughout his illness.

Hubert knew because the routine of teatime was replaced, for that interval, with bedside visits and quiet consultations with healers. Ferdinand was deep in his fevers more days than not, hardly cognizant of the people around him, but Hubert came all the same. Helplessness did not sit well with him, but he came.

Sometimes Ferdinand had moments--minutes, hours--of clarity, and the healers would feed and bathe him, change his sheets, open a window to let the cold winter air disinfect the heavy atmosphere of Ferdinand's quarters. But more often, Ferdinand would be sleeping, his skin shining with sweat, or restlessly turning in his bed as though at war with it.

Byleth visited Ferdinand's quarters like a wraith, soundless and careful not to touch anything. She stood by his bed, looking down at Ferdinand with a peculiar unease in her face. For a woman used to the battlefield, helplessness such as this must have been a disconcerting situation.

Yet she was there every day. They both were, whether they came at once, or one after the other. Unable to do anything, still they needed the reassurance that someone was taking care of Ferdinand, even if they did not how at the moment.

Many of Ferdinand's cohort visited all the same, on odd days and at odd hours as their schedules permitted. The healers would allow them a quick visit, a few words if Ferdinand was conscious, but would otherwise rush them out of the room as efficiently as possible. The only exceptions to this were Hubert, Byleth and the Emperor, who were each intimidating in their own particular ways, but were also unobtrusive with their visits. A chair was set at the far wall for them, and this left enough space for Ferdinand to not be crowded, and for the healers to tend to him if they had to.

Hubert, for his part, had nearly gotten used to this routine when the next break came.

A healer came to him one morning to give a verbal report that the Prime Minister was doing quite well, and that his fever had finally broken. Strange, that a healer would come in person to report such a thing, but Hubert did not give this any thought, and neither did he parse any meaning in the healer's small smile as they left his office. 

He was too busy thinking of what tea Ferdinand would like, now that he might drink something other than the foul medical concoctions he'd been limited to. 

* * *

The first time Hubert walked in on Ferdinand resting peacefully instead of restlessly feverish, the difference struck him to a halt in Ferdinand's doorway. He looked to Ferdinand sprawled across his pillows, a flurry of papers around him, head tilted back and mouth half-open. It should have been a comical image.

Yet fondness writhed in Hubert's chest like a suffering creature as he regarded Ferdinand, and when he moved from the doorframe and dared to advance into the room, he found himself picking up Ferdinand's papers and sorting them restlessly, just to give his hands something to do. He would reach out and touch otherwise, and he was not yet so bold as to do that.

Not yet, Hubert thought. But soon. Quickly. Before Ferdinand slipped through his fingers yet again.

Pleased with this decision, Hubert seated himself, and waited to see Ferdinand's eyes open and upon him like amber catching the sun.


End file.
